ValveTime reports that they’ve unearthed a picture of senior art director at Valve, Jeremy Bennett, wearing a Half-Life 3 T-shirt. The catch? The picture dates from July 2011, as it was taken at the San Diego Comic Con 2011. Though they initially provided no source for the picture’s origin at all, we have managed to locate it (after some tinkering), and we can confirm that the picture in question is, in fact, real.

The original, uncropped, full-size picture was posted on the 14th of July, 2011, on the White Cloud Worlds blog (it’s the second picture down the page, captioned “New friends from New York“). In case you didn’t know, Jeremy Bennett is a featured artist in White Cloud Worlds, a series of anthology volumes bringing together New Zealand’s finest science-fiction and fantasy artwork.

Jeremy only appears in this picture, but in it he is clearly wearing a black T-shirt with the “λ³” logo emblazoned upon it, and with the words “Half-Life 3” written directly under it; while pictured with other designers featured in the White Cloud Worlds anthologies, who attended SDCC 2011. Here is the picture:

The interesting thing is, this is not the same T-shirt as the supposed HL3 T-shirt supposedly seen by an Uber Entertainment developer in December of 2011 – not only have the positions of the number 3 and the Lambda logo been switched around; but the font the number 3 is written in isn’t even the same in both pictures. The veracity of the December ’11 T-shirt has always been a matter of dispute, but this time it’s been placed under even greater scrutiny. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that the HL3 logo might have undergone certain changes between July and December, but all things considered, it might be grasping at straws, at this point.

Well, in any case, what we know is this: as early as July 2011, Valve was producing Half-Life 3 T-shirts for some of its employees. The rest of the story is up to you, as always.

We all want half-life 3 but who really gives this much of a shit about chasing every scrap of evidence that it may or may not exist, that it may or may not be –>this<– close to release. Seems to me, and occam's razor would probably agree, that having a half-life 3 shirt at comic con or any major nerd event is just simple effective trolling. And half-life fans are easy to troll.

I LOVE half-life, it defined gaming for me. But holy shit people, just wait until it comes out/is announced. Groups established to force/pressure communication from Valve comes off as entitled and bratty. If Valve never released another half-life, never spoke a word of another half-life, my life would go on, my affection for half-life would survive. I, and I'd wager many, got more out of half-life as an experience, as a modding community, as a tool for our creativity, than I'll ever get out of just the story of Gordon and Alex. Would I like to see how it ends? Sure. Is it really that important though? Nope. Have they already given us 2 wonderful HL games and an exceptional modding community? Damn right they have. Let them bring us the next Portal, the next TF2. Let these poor bastards dream of bigger things then continuing the legacy of HL.

They really can’t go much bigger than continuing the legacy of Half-Life. It’s their biggest ‘thing’ so far, and topping it with their ‘bigger dreams’ would be a massive undertaking, and more work than simply producing a sequel.

Well if anyone was ever doubtful if the game was in development this should prove it.
Also this confirms the next title would be HL3 and not another episode, anyone who still claims otherwise has probably been sleeping under a rock this whole time or they’re an idiot, case and point.